I have been working on a story in my head for over a decade now. My deployment to Iraq in 2004-2005 with the 1/24 INF regiment has been looping in my mind for these years each day.
Sometimes I try to make sense of it, sometimes I try to avoid it, sometimes I try to just feel grief, anger and then just let it go.
But there it is the next day.
I kept a journal with sketches every few pages so I would remember more clearly. it is not perfect, not kept daily, but there is alot in there. I am working on transcribing it into digital form so I can try and get help from friends that understand narrative and figure out what I want to say with this.
I want to make comic book of this, pictures and words recounting the story fairly close to how I remember it. I had loft goals for why, so that I could somehow sum up the experience in a way that would make the next generation of people hesitate before commiting troops in any conflict.
However, I must be realistic that this may be out of my control. Who knows if the reader will find it interesting, useful. Maybe there has been enough of this, and the world is just too war weary to listen to antother count.
Well, I suppose i need to tell the story, even if its just to externalize it for my own mental benefit. Maybe another Vet could be helped by this. Or maybe not.
While transcribing I thought I would post a page of one of my sketches from that year of a horrible scene. Just to keep me accountable not to forget to work on this project.
